Late November

Rosemary

65th birthday
– after too much cake
I throw away letters
meant to be read
when I got old


Snowflakes spangle
the greenhouse windows –
I pinch
a fragrance of summer
from the rosemary leaf


With one finger
I rub scum from the neck
of a black vase –
it doesn't match my wardrobe,
the scarf he brought from Paris

     c.p.

The Monarch of Woodslawn Farm

A Monarch butterfly nestles in a yellow mum in this view to the southeast from the stone porch steps of Woodslawn Farm, mid-September, 2014.

Herbert celebrated his 90th birthday this week with small family gatherings, birthday cakes, phone calls, and a steadily increasing pile of birthday cards sent from around the country.

On his birthday
the white-haired man who is my father
passes around
a wedge of tree trunk –
wide growth rings, narrow ones

c.p.

Summery Tanka

A tall heron
hides its legs in the shallow pond
and I wonder
can a woman lose herself
in the digital sea


Does she remember
the Vermont flowers
that became salad
for a woodchuck –
my transplanted sister


The tractor
my grandfather bought
more rust than red
the hot-sun fragrance
of dry grass waiting to be baled


Bath towels
tug against the clothesline –
13 candles
and a long argument
about her curfew


     by Carol Purington